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Private Wilkins - A Slough Soldierby Michael Smith |
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Harold Wilkins was born in 1925 and lived in Ledgers Road, Slough. During the war he worked in a local factory which produced food for the armed forces. There he met and fell in love with my Aunt Joan. This being war, Harold was called to join the army. Harold and Joan decided to marry before he was sent abroad to join his Regiment. They married in 1943 and hoped for a few days together, but Harold was suddenly recalled to join his unit. They said goodbye and were never to meet again. |
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Harold's unit was the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers [ City of London Regiment ] part of the 56th Division, which landed at Salerno in Italy. Harold was killed on the 24th February 1944, he was just 19 years of age. He was one of 443 men of his Battalion who died in that 18 day battle. Although only 3 years old at the time I was aware of a great sadness in the family. |
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After the war, Joan married a Canadian Soldier and moved to Toronto, Canada. Now a Widow in her 90's, Joan still remembers her tall handsome hero from Slough. Such was the confussion of those war years, that it was not until quite recently that she found out that Harold is buried in the Beach Head War Cemetery at Anzio, Italy. Thanks to the War Graves Commision and an excellent charity called the War Graves Photographic Project, she now has the comfort of some photographs of Harold's grave. |
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Sadly there does not appear to be a memorial in the Slough area to those local lads who fell in the second and subsequent wars. Perhaps if this story finds its way into a page of Slough history, it will serve as a memorial to Harold and those of his generation who made such a great sacriface. |
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www.SloughHistoryOnline.org.uk says: Yes, Slough did mark he sacrifice of their war dead. Rather than construct a memorial, a Slough War Memorial Garden was laid in Baylis Park. It was opened with great pomp on Sunday 14th May 1950. Their names were also added to the World War One book of remembrance. For many years the book was kept in the Town Hall. |
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